Day: March 7, 2007

I would. Just think, “Open Source hardware!” Kind of a neat idea! This is an open letter to Mark Shuttleworth, who founded Canonical, makers of Ubuntu Linux:

Open letter to Mark Shuttleworth

“Now Canonical and Ubuntu have made great strides toward realizing your vision yet there remains a bottleneck – people still have to install Linux. Installing Linux is easier than ever, but installing any operating system is unfortunately not trivial and is a chore that most computer users have no use for and will avoid. Remove this impediment, sell Linux pre-installed…

In short;

– there is a market for pre-installed Linux
– you already have the support system
– potential partners exist in the hardware branch
– you already have the software”

I don’t know why… but it CAN be done! Thanks to Kelly, a faithful listener, who shared this with me! Windows Media Player in Windows… which we will call WiMP from now on (I love that one, Kelly!) will play Ogg IF you install a codec for it, available here:

Directshow Filters for Ogg Vorbis, Speex, Theora and FLAC

So there you go… you can use WiMP and cruise on with patent-free media! Hoo-rah!

By the by… I just tried it, and it works! Kinda cool, actually! Don’t get me wrong, of course, I STILL prefer VLC Player… it is free, it is Open Source, and it is NOT Microsoft!